The World Cup is a time celebrity our national teams, watch beautiful goals and match-defining saves. Some people take work leave to follow their teams play every match. The most diehard fans color their homes into national team hues. They paint their faces and follow the football event on their smartphones round the clock.
With the growth of the Internet, the World Cup has become influential to social media networks. In the 2014 Brazil World Cup, football fans tweeted 672 million times, a record for the social network.
With an average of 618,000 tweets per minute, Brazil’s embarrassing 7-1 defeat to Germany was the most tweeted match. In general, the 2014 World Cup attracted more than 100 million conversations on twitter and Facebook.
In the 2018 World Cup, social media was lit once again as Croatia shocked many to reach the finals. France eventually won, but it was the high number of surprise wins that made the event memorable. The rise of youngsters like Kylian Mbappe of France added flair to the event. The use of Video Assistance Referee (VAR) for the first time also added publicity to the event.
So, what’s the connection between the World Cup and social media?
Breaking the News
Diehard fans paint their faces in their countries’ flag colors and follow every match on TV during the World Cup. But with today’s work nature, it’s not always to watch every match. Social media is the second source of finding news, especially sports related.
61% of football fans follow a sports-related account. 81% of the fans are also active social media users. If they can’t watch their country play on TV, they follow the news on Facebook or twitter. The Federation for International Football (FIFA) has social media accounts on Facebook, twitter, and Instagram.
The organization promotes sports viewership on social media and announces news on the same networks. With most fans being social media users, FIFA isn’t the only organizations that use social media to break news. During the World Cup, you can’t scroll your Facebook feed without finding sports-related news.
Social Effect
More than 500,000 football fans traveled to Russia earlier in June. More than one billion others were closely monitoring the event. Every fan wanted to praise their team and show their support. They can’t show their support on TV. And even if they do, fans can’t reach out to as many people.
Social media provides the platform for fans to interact and share opinions about their teams. In the limits of 280 characters, fans can tweet as many times as possible. Facebook is more lenient and fans can express themselves in more than 1000 characters.
All the major social networks support both text and audiovisual files. If fans want to share images of their favorite players, they can do so. The World Cup lets players showcase their might on the pitch. But out of the event, fans display their emotions and love for the game on the major social networks.
Economic Impact
The 2018 World Cup injected in excess of $2.4 billion around the world through social media ads. With more than a billion fans, companies of all manners wanted to be associated with the event. Soft drink brands had already partnered with players to promote their brands. Some countries run ads on Facebook and Twitter throughout the event.
During the big games, popular companies invested in the most expensive Facebook ads. Unlike TV, social media allows brands to interact with customers. They can trigger conversations and spark trends that lead to more sales on twitter.
Better for advertisers, the World Cup sparks conversations from the right targets. Unlike any other time, football fans are active on social media throughout the event. The Return on Investment for brands is much higher during sports tournaments than during regular times.
Of course, companies with better advertising strategies had more ROI than others. McDonald, for example, benefited in the 2014 tournament with over 2.7 million mentions. In perspective, every mention cost the fast-food franchise $6.48. But with two million mentions, that’s a huge deal to the brand. In comparison, Yingli, a Chinese solar panel, paid $6,290 for each mention during the World Cup.
Match Predictions and Financial Rewards
The World Cup brings fans together in a lot of ways. They heap praise at their national team heroes on Facebook. They post their favorite goals and make fun of rival teams. But in a great way, the event has helped some fans earn life-changing money.
Many sports betting sites like Bet365 offered big bonuses, you can find a detailed Bet365 bonus review on SportyTrader. Some use their knowledge about national teams to make predictions. Others make random guesses. But all in all, patriotic fans take advantage of prediction competitions to bet on their national teams to win.
Locally, news channels use the event to promote their brands. Sports radio stations make monetary offers to anyone who predicts match events correctly. International brands sponsor couples and friends to world-class resorts for making similar predictions.
Even more involved than broadcasting channels are bookie sites. In any world cup event, betting sites are rife with images about sports heroes. In the 2018 World Cup, the biggest betting sites run more jackpots than any other time. The companies spent millions on ads and sponsorships. They advertised on social networks and TV channels 247. By the time the World Cup was over, the companies had reaped millions in profits.
Like any form of advertising, only the best bookie sites benefit from the World Cup. Football matches are broadcast worldwide. Websites with a global reach advertise their services to the 180+ countries that watch the event. Some brands take advantage of specific regions and promote their services to specific countries.
Uniting the World
There is no better proof that the World Cup unites people that seeing pictures of different fans hug and cheer teams together. The event not only bring fans together but it also unites the world. People overlook their religious and political differences to concentrate the game.
Traditionally, the World Cup only untied people through TV. These days, the event’s influence is exemplified on Facebook and twitter. African fans united with their European counterparts. Christians shake hands with Muslims and people spend three weeks speaking one language: football.
To Conclude
The World Cup is more than a football tournament. It’s an event that unites and makes people of all backgrounds celebrate football. Brands take advantage of the event to promote their services. Human Rights Organizations promote unity and social media is lit with stories of happiness, perseverance promoting footballing success.